NAACP working toward interracial equality

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It was like a scene straight out of the movie “Crash.” De’Sean Ellis walked into an elevator after one of his classes on campus and was met with discrimination. A woman who was already in the elevator moved aside and clenched her purse, thinking she might get robbed by the black man walking in.

Ellis, a senior electronic media and broadcasting major, noticed what she did and decided to confront the problem.

“It’s cool, I’m not going to take your purse,” Ellis told her. The woman then opened up to Ellis and they both discussed stereotypes they had and what they had been through in the past.

“We kicked it off nicely after that,” Ellis said.

Discrimination is a problem that people face every day and is a problem that NKU’s chapter of the NAACP is trying to bring awareness and education to.

Ellis said that if you don’t confront the problem, it will build up inside of you and you’ll wish you had spoken up.

“Every time I have the opportunity to hear someone’s story about being stereotyped, I like to listen and tell them my story so that people can feel comfortable around me,” Ellis said. “It was one of the biggest things that ever happened to me at NKU.”

On April 9, the NAACP met on campus to discuss discrimination within races. This meeting focused mainly on the racism between light-skinned and dark-skinned black people.

Nicole White, a double major in communication studies and organizational leadership, said that discrimination has affected her life.

“I have light skin so sometimes people will see me and automatically assume that I am stuck up or that I’m a snob,” White said. “I think this is a problem for society as a whole. It’s not fair, but it happens.”

Nia Slaughter, president of the NKU chapter of the NAACP and senior criminal justice major, led the discussion at the meeting.

“We are all a people. Not just whites and blacks separately, but everybody as a people. We are the human race,” Slaughter said. “We shouldn’t downgrade others of our race just because they have a different shade of skin color.”

“People are people, no matter what race, skin color or ethnicity,” Slaughter said.